“Maybe, just . . . honey. Please. You’re making me nervous.” She puts down the romance novel she’s reading and stares at me imploringly. It must be bad for her to put down her book. I perch on the edge of the sofa and just as I’ve started to think that maybe they should have called by now, my phone buzzes.
I scoop it up, breathless, on edge, who cares? “Hello?”
“Dr. Michael?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“My name is Ingrid Persson. I am the Chair of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute.” Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. This is the coolest phone call of my entire life.
“I’m thrilled to inform you that we have chosen to award you the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.”
“Thank you! This is an honor, truly.” Margot is hugging me so tightly I can’t breathe. Everything, every bit of work, every second I spent in the lab was worth it for this—”
“I have another piece of news you might find less . . . pleasing.”
My heart drops. What is it? Maybe it’s the money, I don’t care about the money. I don’t need prize money. No ceremony maybe? Damn it, I’ve been dreaming about the ceremony my whole life.
“You will share the prize.” Ingrid says more words at this point, but the world goes a little fuzzy and black around the edges and Margot is looking up at me quizzically and did she just say I have to share the Nobel Prize? I’ve never even shared an office.
“Dr. Michael? Dr. Michael, are you still there?”
I clear my throat. “Yes, sorry about that, I dropped my phone. Whom am I sharing my prize with?”
“Dr. Amaya Sharvani, for her discovery of the genetic sequence from which immunity and vulnerability to the Plague arose in men and women, and Dr. George Kitchen, for his work in creating a test for immunity.”
Okay. Sharing among three isn’t too bad. Could be worse, could be worse. Could be . . . sharing among four. Who am I kidding? I’m horrified, but fuck it. I’m a horrified Nobel Prize winner.
“I look forward to meeting you at the ceremony in two months’ time.”
“Dr. Persson, it is truly an honor. I’m so grateful.”
“I am grateful for your work, Dr. Michael. The Nobel Prize is a small token of recognition for the advances you have made in science.”
She hangs up and Margot is hugging herself, looking at me, stricken. “What is it, what’s happening?”
I pick her up and hold her. “So, bad news is I’m sharing the Nobel Prize. Good news is, it’ll probably take me down a peg or two.”
“Sharing with George Kitchen and Amaya?”
“The very ones.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I always said you should have taken my name.”
“Margot!” She’s right, of course.
“What? It could have been Lisa Bird-Michael, George Kitchen and Amaya Sharvani, winners of the Nobel Prize.”
I groan through a grudging laugh. It rankles that my name will come second. “I love you so much and hate you at the same time.”
“That’s marriage.” She grins. “I’m so proud of you. Truly, all those years of work as a penniless grad student and junior in the lab. Can you imagine how you’d have felt back then if I’d told you that you’d win a Nobel Prize?”
Margot nuzzles her head into my neck in a way I’ve always found to be the most comforting thing in the world. “You know I thought this might happen. Sharing the prize.”
Ah, Margot. Always knowing more than she lets on. “Why?”